Bram Möller's Arc

Chapter 22 of 63

Wendell led them up a narrow flue in the rock. The air grew colder with every step. Bram counted turns and kept one hand on the wall. Parisa followed with the lantern. The compass sat closed in her pocket now. It had done its work. After an hour the flue opened onto a shelf of packed snow. Wind cut sideways. Above them the sky showed grey, and the pass ran clear between two ridges. They were above the tree line. No trees meant no fuel, no shelter, and no way for a courier below to see a signal fire. Bram stopped at the shelf's edge. He worked the math in his head. His last drop had gone ahead with Omondi in the tender. Vex and Omondi would be at the far waystation by now, waiting on word. If he walked out of the pass on foot with no signal, he would freeze before he reached them. Even if he did not freeze, no airship would meet him. They did not know he was alive. "How far to the nearest road," Bram said. "Two days on foot," Wendell said. "One if the wind holds." "We don't have two days of food." Parisa pulled her coat tighter. "Then we send a message." Bram looked at the mechanical owl on his shoulder. Its brass eyes tracked the wind. The bird could carry a note, but it needed a target it knew. It had never been to the waystation Omondi flew to. It would fly in circles and burn its coal. He thought of the hawk. Omondi's storm-tracking bird. He had left it in a crate at the last waystation before the crash. The hawk knew Omondi's scent and Omondi's tender. If the owl could reach that crate, the keeper there would open it, and the hawk would find Omondi anywhere within a day's flight. "The owl goes to the waystation," Bram said. "Not to Omondi. To the crate." Parisa understood at once. She tore a strip from the inside of her sleeve and held it flat on her knee. Bram wrote with a pencil stub. Alive. Above tree line. North face of Hollowpass. Send the hawk. He rolled the strip and tied it to the owl's leg. He wound the key at its neck three full turns. He set it on the shelf facing down the ridge. The owl opened its wings, tested the wind, and lifted. It cleared the shelf and dropped below the ridge line. Bram watched until the brass was a speck. Then nothing. Wendell was already moving. "We walk while the light holds. If your bird gets through, they'll know where to look. If it doesn't, we keep walking." Bram turned his back on the empty sky and followed him into the wind.